02609 - Contemporary Italian Literature (M-Q)

Learning outcomes

At the end of this class, students are expected to achieve a wide knowledge of Italian Twentieth-Century literature, with a main focus on relationships between literature and sociology, anthropology and civilization; the course load goes together with general notions in criticism and textual analysis, in formal, structural, compositional matters, and in their reception as well. During the course students become able to analyze by themselves texts belonging to the contemporary Italian literary tradition.

Course contents

Main topic:

Forms of temporality between the 19th and 20th centuries

The course aims to investigate the main figures of temporality in the novel and poetry between the 19th and 20th centuries, in relation to changing models of thought in different historical and ideological horizons.

The course will focus on the following figures of temporality:

• Eternal recurrence and variation of the Same: the analogical correspondence between events and situations in Il Piacere and the mythic time of Alcyone by Gabriele D’Annunzio.
• Memory and disenchantment in La Signorina Felicita.
• Dynamism and simultaneity: the myth of speed in Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Manifesti del futurismo.
• Instantaneity and duration: the anomalous “war-diary” of Ungaretti’s Porto Sepolto.
• Emergence of the Past in the present and removal: the “mixed time” in Italo Svevo’s La coscienza di Zeno.
• Irreversibility of time and contingency: Eugenio Montale’s Ossi di seppia and Le occasioni.
• Limit-experience and memory: Primo Levi’s Se questo è un uomo.
• Loss of experience in Italian culture and poetry of the Sixties and Seventies.

 

It is strongly recommended to attend the first introductory lesson about the bibliography of the course and the assessment methods (explained in detail at the bottom of the page). Students are also invited to access the Teaching resources on Virtuale platform before the start of the course.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en ) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

Further information about the course, the program and the assessment methods will be provided in class and during Office hours (not by email).

Readings/Bibliography

Complete reading in Italian of all primary texts and assigned critical studies is required for the examination.

 

General reference studies (for both the 6 CFU and the 12 CFU course):

• Stephen Kern, Il tempo e lo spazio. La percezione del mondo tra Otto e Novecento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1988, pp. 17-49 (disponibile su Virtuale);
• Letteratura italiana contemporanea, a cura di Gino Tellini e Gino Ruozzi, Le Monnier Università, 2026 (limitatamente alle parti relative agli argomenti in programma).

 

Module I (30 hours):

Primary texts

a) Prose

Complete reading (including the introduction and notes) of:

• Gabriele d’Annunzio, Il Piacere, a cura di F. Roncoroni, Milano, Mondadori, 1995 (o altra edizione annotata).
• Italo Svevo, La coscienza di Zeno, a cura di C. Benussi, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2014 (o altra edizione annotata).

b) Poetry

The editions from which the poems discussed in class are taken are listed below. The examination texts, together with the accompanying commentary and notes (which form an integral part of the examination syllabus), will be available in the Teaching Resources section on Virtuale before the start of the course.

• Gabriele d’Annunzio, Alcyone, a cura di F. Roncoroni, Milano, Oscar Mondadori, 1995 (o ristampe).
• Guido Gozzano, La signorina Felicita ovvero La Felicità, in ID., Poesie e prose, introduzione di P.P. Pasolini, a cura di L. Lenzini, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2011.
• Giuseppe Ungaretti, Il Porto Sepolto, in N. Lorenzini-S. Colangelo, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Firenze, Le Monnier, 2012.

Critical studies:

• F. Roncoroni, Introduzione a Gabriele d’Annunzio, Alcyone, a cura di F. Roncoroni, Milano, Oscar Mondadori, 1995 (o ristampe), pp. .
• F. Carbognin, Svevo e Saba tra Trieste e la Mitteleuropa, in N. Bonazzi, A. Campana, F. Giunta, N. Maldina [a cura di], Itinerari nella letteratura italiana. Da Dante al web, Roma, Carocci, 2013, Cap. XXIX, pp. 357-366.
• G. Contini, «La coscienza di Zeno» di Italo Svevo, in Letteratura italiana. Le opere, vol. IV, Il Novecento, tomo I, L’età della crisi, a cura di Alberto Asor Rosa, Torino, Einaudi, 1995, pp. 593-624.
• G. Guglielmi, La vita originale di Zeno, in ID., La prosa italiana del Novecento. Umorismo Metafisica Grottesco, Torino, Einaudi, 1986, pp. 30-55.

 

Module II (30 hours):

Primary texts

a) Prose

• Primo Levi, Se questo è un uomo, postfazione di Cesare Segre, Torino, Einaudi, «Super ET», 2005.

b) Poetry

A seguire si indicano le edizioni cui appartengono le poesie che saranno analizzate a lezione. I soli testi delle liriche da preparare in vista dell’esame (provvisti di commenti e note, che sono parte integrante del programma d’esame) sono disponibili in Risorse didattiche su Virtuale.

• Eugenio Montale, Ossi di seppia, a cura di P. Cataldi e F. d’Amely, Milano, Mondadori, 2016; ID., Le occasioni, a cura di T. De Rogatis, Milano, Mondadori, 2011; ID., La bufera e altro, a cura di I. Campeggiani e N. Scaffai, Milano, Mondadori, 2019.
• Andrea Zanzotto, Tutte le poesie, a cura di S. Dal Bianco, Milano, Mondadori, 2011.
• Antonio Porta, Tutte le poesie (1956-1989), a cura di N. Lorenzini, Garzanti, Milano, 2009.
• Amelia Rosselli, Variazioni Belliche, in A. Rosselli, L’opera poetica, a cura di S. Giovannuzzi, con la collaborazione di F. Carbognin, C. Carpita, S. De March, G. Palli Baroni, E. Tandello, Milano, Mondadori, “I Meridiani”, 2012, pp. 3-189.

Critical studies

Some of the critical studies listed below will be made available in the Teaching Resources section on Virtuale before the start of the course. The others are available at the Library of Via Zamboni 32 (first floor).

• Cesare Segre, «Se questo è un uomo di Primo Levi», in Letteratura italiana. Le Opere, diretta da Alberto Asor Rosa, vol. IV, Il Novecento, tomo II, La ricerca letteraria, Torino, Einaudi, 1996.
• E. Testa, Montale, Torino, Einaudi Tascabili, 2000, pp. 1-77.
• F. Carbognin, Linguaggio (1956 – 1969), in N. Lorenzini – S. Colangelo [a cura di], Poesia e Storia, Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2013, pp. 195-239.
• S. Dal Bianco, Il percorso dellla poesia di Andrea Zanzotto, introduzione a A. Zanzotto, Tutte le poesie, Milano, Mondadori, 2011.
• N. Lorenzini, Postfazione, in A. Porta, Poesie 1956-1988, Milano, Mondadori, 1989, pp. 179-195.
• Francesco Carbognin, Variazioni Belliche, in A. Rosselli, L'opera poetica, a cura di S. Giovannuzzi, con la collaborazione di F. Carbognin, C. Carpita, S. De March, G. Palli Baroni, E. Tandello, Milano, Mondadori, “I Meridiani”, 2012, pp. 1292-1310.

 

Please Note

For each of the two modules, a selection of pages from critical studies on the authors included in the syllabus will be made available in the Teaching Resources section on Virtuale before the beginning of the course. These materials will be discussed during the lectures and form an integral part of the examination syllabus. Their study is therefore compulsory, including for students who do not attend classes.

 

Programme for Non-attending Students

In addition to the required primary texts and critical studies, non-attending students are required to consult:

• L. Chines, C. Varotti, Che cos'è un testo letterario, Roma, Carocci, 2015.

 

Teaching methods

The course consists of face-to-face lectures, with strong interaction between students and the lecturer

Assessment methods

Students will be required to read and comment on selected texts included in the course programme, identifying their main thematic, linguistic, and stylistic features, as well as their relationship to the relevant historical and cultural context.

Assessment criteria:

28–30L: In-depth knowledge of the texts included in the course programme, of their thematic, stylistic, and conceptual features, and of their relationship to the socio-historical horizon of European modernity. Ability to place the texts in a dynamic and critically productive dialogue with the relevant scholarly literature, to pursue independent lines of inquiry beyond the lecturer’s indications, and to relate the works studied to contemporary issues.

23–27: Good knowledge of the texts included in the course programme, of their thematic, stylistic, and conceptual features, and of their relationship to the socio-historical horizon of European modernity.

18–22: Basic but adequate knowledge of the texts included in the course programme, of their thematic, stylistic, and conceptual features, and of their relationship to the socio-historical horizon of European modernity.

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is necessary to contact the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) with ample time in advance: the office will propose some adjustments, which must in any case be submitted 15 days in advance to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of these in relation to the teaching objectives.

Teaching tools

PC, video projector, overhead projector, slides and digital scans of images and excerpts from poetic and critical texts.

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Carbognin